This article explains how to create an Advanced Listening search using the search builder. It covers the following topics:
Please Note: Advanced Listening is available as an add-on to your subscription. More information on pricing is available here.
How to create an Advanced Listening search
When creating a Listening search, you will have two options for the type of search that you would like to create:
Regular search: Listens broadly to keywords, direct mentions, and hashtags around a specific topic. Ideal for brand and industry monitoring
Competitive listening search: Benchmark your brand against competitors by listening to what's said about them. Keywords only.
Creating a Regular search
Creating a Regular search
Regular searches listen for keywords, direct mentions, and hashtags around specific topics.
To create an Advanced Listening using a Regular search:
Click +Create a new search
Select Regular search
(Required) Enter a Search name
(Optional) Enter a search description
Under Search settings, select from the following listening parameters that you would like to manage:
Keywords (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, Blogs, News, & Forum)
Enter keywords, hashtags, or phrases to be listened for on the selected source. After each keyword, press Enter to validate it before entering the next keyword
Create more precise listening searches in each keyword group with advanced keyword filtering by using Boolean operators: Any (OR) or All (AND)
Additional keyword groups can be created by selecting between AND or OR Boolean operators below the current keyword group
Note: Once a Boolean operator has been selected for the next keyword group, only that operator can be used when creating new keyword groups.Then toggle on the sources to be included in the search
Instagram hashtags
Type hashtags to be listened for on Instagram. After each hashtag, press Enter to validate it before entering the next keyword
Note: A maximum of 30 hashtags is allowed across all Instagram searches.
Direct mentions (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), & LinkedIn)
From the drop-down, select from your connected profiles to listen for direct mentions of the selected profiles
(Optional) Under Filters, the following options are available to help reduce noise in your searches:
Search screening - Automatically filters out off-topic posts using a "topic focus" generated from your search's keywords. Review the topic focus and screened posts anytime.
Note: Editing your search keywords updates the topic focus automatically.Exclusion options - Allows you to add the following exclusions to your searches:
Exclude keywords (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, News, Blogs, and Forum sources)
Note: When filtering keywords, Boolean operators can be used like in a keyword searchExclude Instagram hashtags
Exclude direct mentions (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn sources)
Country and language filtering options
Filter content by origin countries for X (Twitter), News, Blogs, and Forums sources
Filter content by languages on Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, News, Blogs, and Forums sources
Note: Language filtering is only applied to keyword parameters, not Instagram hashtags or direct mentions.
Historical data (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, Blogs, News, & Forums)
Select from the following time frames for how far back in the past you want items to be retrieved:
Two months (default)
Six months
One year
Two years
Note: Instagram currently does not support two-year historical data, but it is planned for the near future.
Click Save search
Please note: You can define up to 60 parameters for each Advanced Listening search
Creating a Competitive listening search
Creating a Competitive listening search
Competitive listening search is used to benchmark your brand against a competitor. Allowing you to use keywords to listen to what is said about them.
To create an Advanced Listening using a Competitive listening search:
Click +Create a new search
Select Competitive listening search
(Required) Enter a Search name
(Optional) Enter a search description
Under Search sources, select the sources where your brand and competitors' keywords will be listened on:
Available sources are Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, & Web (Blogs, News, & Forum)
Under Search settings, enter keywords for your brand and each of your competitors to listen to conversations mentioning them:
(Optional) Click Add your brand's keywords
Enter the name of your brand
Add keywords, hashtags, or phrases to be listened for your brand on the selected source. After each keyword, press Enter to validate it before entering the next keyword
Note: Create more precise listening searches in each keyword group using advanced keyword filtering with Boolean operators: Any (OR) or All (AND). Additional keyword groups can be created by selecting between AND or OR Boolean operators below the current keyword group
(Optional) Exclusion options: Toggle this on to exclude keywords only for posts matching your brand
Click Add competitor under Competitors
Note: Up to 10 competitors can be added if Brand Keyword is left empty, or 9 competitors if Brand Keyword is filled in.Enter the name of your competitor
Add keywords, hashtags, or phrases to be listened for your competitor on the selected source. After each keyword, press Enter to validate it before entering the next keyword
(Optional) Exclusion options: Toggle this on to exclude keywords only for posts matching your brand
(Optional) Under Filters, the following options are available to help reduce noise in your searches:
Country and language filtering options
Filter content by origin countries for X (Twitter), News, Blogs, and Forums sources
Filter content by languages on Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, News, Blogs, and Forums sources
Exclusion options
Exclude keywords from all results for your brand and your competitors (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, News, Blogs, and Forum sources)
Note: When filtering keywords, Boolean operators can be used like in a keyword search
Historical data (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, Blogs, News, & Forum)
Select from the following time frames for how far back in the past you want items to be retrieved:
Two months (default)
Six months
One year
Two years
Note: Instagram currently does not support two-year historical data, but it is planned for the near future.
Click Save search
Advanced Listening Search Sources
Advanced Listening searches can source information from several types of sources. Multiple sources may be selected for a single search. The available sources are listed below:
Facebook - Mentions of your profile and keywords on industry-related collections
X (Twitter) - Mentions of your profile and keywords on public posts, replies
Instagram - Mentions of your profile, hashtags on public posts, and keywords on industry-related collections
LinkedIn - Mentions of your profile (posts only)
YouTube - Keywords on public posts
Reddit- Keywords on public posts and comments
Web (News)- Keywords on news sites.
Web (Blog) - Keywords on blog posts
Web (Forums) - Keywords on main post and comments
Note: To include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or X (Twitter), you must have a connected profile with a valid token for that network
Advanced Listening Search Parameters
You can define up to 60 parameters for each Advanced Listening search. In the table below, a list of search parameters is shown in the first column, and the available Listening sources are in the subsequent columns. A ✓ symbol indicates that the source has access to the corresponding search parameter, while a ✗ symbol indicates that the source cannot use that search parameter.
Search parameters | X (Twitter) | YouTube | Web (News, Blogs, & Forums) | ||||
Keywords | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Hashtags | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Mentions | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
Please note: A maximum of 30 hashtags is allowed across all Instagram searches.
Advanced Listening Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
In this section, we will outline important information related to creating an Advanced Listening search.
How long are Advanced Listening items available to view?
Advanced Listening items are stored for 60 days. If you delete and recreate the same search:
Within 60 days (with identical parameters), the previous items will reappear immediately.
After 60 days, a new sync will occur, and data older than 30 days may be permanently lost
What are the X (Twitter) synchronization limits?
When a search is created, we retrieve up to 300 posts from the past 7 days.
After creation, a maximum of 4,500 posts per month will be synced.
How is data from web sources (blogs, forums, and news) synced?
News, blog, and forum data are updated once per day
Content retrieved upon creation:
Blogs and News: Last 30 days
Forum: Last 60 days
Limits:
Blogs: Last 250 articles
News & Forum: Unlimited
Are there any limitations for creating a Reddit search?
Currently, Reddit listening searches support the following features:
Syncing keywords from:
Post titles
Post content
Comments
Thread names
Usernames
Sentiment analysis
View On links
Language filtering
Excluded keywords
Results available in graphs, alerts, and exports
Mobile support for viewing synced Reddit posts
However, there are some limitations for Reddit searches due to API limitations. These limitations include:
Cannot listen to specific Subreddits
Cannot engage with Reddit posts or comments
No engagement data (likes, replies, etc.)
Cannot sync image or GIF content
Only keyword-based matching is supported
Username, thread title, or flair-based filtering is not available
Only text or link content is captured
Geographic filtering
Why are specific blogs or news articles not synced in Listening?
We sync a large number of sources every day, but some blogs or news sites can’t be included.
This limitation depends both on our data provider and on the sites themselves, as some may restrict or prevent data extraction from their platforms. These restrictions include:
The site doesn’t correctly provide an RSS or Atom feed (used to fetch the blog’s/News content).
The site may block certain bots or protect its content from crawlers/paid content
Our data provider has to manage and update millions of articles every day, so they must optimize by limiting crawling on unknown or potentially spammy blogs.